


When Your Hands Are Tied and Your Boyfriend is Becoming Undone

by easefuldays



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 00:25:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easefuldays/pseuds/easefuldays
Summary: It’s been days and Adam can’t get the look Ronan gave him as he sat in the passenger seat of Cheng’s car out of his mind. It was one filled with longing and held a weight that confirmed how tethered to this moment they were, tethered by Gansey’s death, by Cabeswater.  The boys who sat in the passenger seat were individuals who maybe, maybe didn’t want to be seen as separate entities, as two floating rocks orbiting the same sun. What would have happened if I looked back?





	When Your Hands Are Tied and Your Boyfriend is Becoming Undone

Adam can still feel the thrum of Ronan’s pulse underneath his fingertips. The steady thumping, setting a pace for how hard he – the demon, never Adam – squeezed. Hands that have grazed Ronan’s sharp cheekbones and stuttered over the sharp edges of his jaw were clinging to his throat as if choking him would release an answer to a problem everyone had been striving to solve. He can barely look at himself – or Gansey or Blue or Henry or Ronan _oh god, Ronan_ – but as he stands in the middle of the field where Gansey had died only a few short years ago, he manages to steal a glance at Ronan sprawled in the passenger seat of the car, his entire _being_ running out of his nose and ears like blood gushing from a papercut and all the thrumming beneath his fingertips is replaced by the haunting echo of a kiss, their kiss. And he makes his sacrifice.

 

*

 

The car is eerily silent as the five of them – Henry, Blue, Gansey, Ronan, and himself – wander like a band of misfit toys back to Henrietta. Ronan drives, black-crusted hands gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and Adam sits in the passenger seat staring-but-trying-to-pass-it-off-as-looking-out-the-window, their age-old game. The world rushes by them in a haze but it all seems to stop when Ronan turns to him – all muscle and slopes and _blue blue blue_ eyes that could cut glass – and he feels himself audibly gasp. Adam turns away before the gaze he returns reveals too much.

 

*

It’s been days and Adam can’t get the look Ronan gave him as he sat in the passenger seat of Cheng’s car out of his mind. It was one filled with longing and held a weight that confirmed how tethered to this moment they were, tethered by Gansey’s death, by Cabeswater.  The boys who sat in the passenger seat were individuals who maybe, maybe didn’t want to be seen as separate entities, as two floating rocks orbiting the same sun. _What would have happened if I looked back?_ Adam thinks to himself, running a hand through the dirty strands of his hair as he paces around the dusty ground floor of Monmouth. _What would he have seen?_ What would have happened if he released the words that were trapped behind his lips, what would have happened if he _really_ told Ronan how deep this thing between them runs within him, how his feelings for Ronan could stop time, stop the world and how when they kiss the world spins off its axis and he forgets who he is – who he was, who he thought he would always be – and can see the person he’ll become. How Ronan makes a dark, twisted world beautiful, how he makes Adam think he’s beautiful, too.  He wonders if his gaze would give away how he felt about him, if returning Ronan’s look would reveal that he wanted to break every rule and run to him, to lean across the center console and kiss him at ninety miles an hour like he’d been wanting to for days, weeks, months, centuries, lifetimes. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t, because hours before his hands had been choking the life out of him, because hours before Gansey had died – _died_ , heart stopping lungs deflating _dead_. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t. He can’t now, not after everything, and maybe not ever, after everything.

 

But he can still see the fierceness of Ronan’s gaze every time he closes his eyes.

 

*

It’s then that the door to Monmouth opens and Ronan strides in, looking like pleasure and sin tied up in a leather-clad package. He stops short when he realizes that Adam is still here, pacing circles in the dust and cracks a smile that splits his face in two, that makes Adam stop pacing. Ronan watches him take a deep breath – chest rising and falling in slow motion – before Adam raises an eyebrow in question, a secret challenge. Ronan nods his head toward the door and the two walk side by side, Adam’s fingers grazing Ronan’s knuckles – asking for permission. Ronan opens his hand and weaves their fingers together – an answer.

*

They’re back in the same position as they were the other night, Ronan’s white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel as the silver BMW soars through Henrietta without a destination at a speed that would be alarming if it were anyone but Ronan driving. But suddenly the scene changes because, instead of resting his un-steering hand over the gearshift like he did the other night, Ronan reaches over and places his hand on Adam’s thigh, right above his knee.  Adam stares at his hands for seconds, minutes, hours, days, before taking Ronan’s hand off his thigh and bringing it to his lips. He whispers _I’m sorry_ into the spaces between his fingers and continues his endless mantra until Ronan’s hand starts shaking and he signals off the road, pulling onto a dirt road on the side of the highway.  

 

Ronan turns the car off and pulls his hand away from Adam’s mouth. When he reaches for him Adam closes his eyes and tries not to flinch, tries so hard not to believe that Ronan’s hands were capable of what his fathers were, and instead flinches when Ronan’s hands cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing over the freckles that have made a home right below his eyes. It takes him a second to ease into the feeling of Ronan’s fingers tapdancing over his skin, and when he finally lifts his gaze to meet Ronan’s, he’s met with nothing but adoration.

“It’s okay,” Ronan breathes, and Adam feels pieces of himself come undone, “Adam, it’s okay.” He leans in and kisses him, the softest touch of lips grazing lips, exactly what Adam wanted to do all of those nights ago in Henry’s car. The world spins out of orbit, tilts out of its axis. The air simultaneously stills and swirls, the ocean burned. Adam was forgiven.


End file.
